Celeste and Jesse Forever lacks true charm

Pokes fun at, but falls prey to rom-com stereotypes

In Celeste and Jesse Forever, the titular, newly separated female protagonist's unflamboyant queer co-worker (Elijah Wood) tells her "it's time to get your fuck on," and then immediately apologizes: "Sorry, I was trying to be your saucy gay friend." Co-written by and starring Parks and Rec straight-woman Rashida Jones, Forever is a notably lo-fi entry into the recent trend of romantic comedies that think acknowledging the genre's clichés is as good as subverting them (see last summer's studio offerings Friends With Benefits and What's Your Number?). Throughout, stereotypes are trotted out so that the movie can wink that it's too smart for them.

A couple since puberty, L.A. thirtysomethings Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) are in the middle of history's most amicable divorce. They're best friends who still crack each other up with baby talk in-jokes and can't resist a wine-fueled hookup. So why did they break up? Because Celeste is the type of judgy, materialistic career girl these films exist to knock down a peg. Stylish workaholic girl dumped hoodied man-child boy because "he doesn't have a checking account, or dress shoes." But because her own self-sufficiency is essentially a game of dress-up, she happily lets her soon-to-be-ex-husband live in her guest house; he accepts, pride and privacy be damned, because he's holding out hope for a marital reunion. When Jesse discovers that an agreeable one-night-stand is pregnant, he makes moves to "man up," moving in with his baby mama and leaving Celeste to face adult life without her co-dependent human security blanket. A branding expert who shoots down a potential suitor by nailing what his lifestyle choices supposedly say about who he is, Celeste is herself ironically un-self-aware to the point of caricature. Bad dates, intoxicated humiliation, whoops-I-let-boy-trouble-distract-me-at-work professional incompetence, fashion disasters (because ladies, we stop washing our hair when we are sad), and groovy music montages pave the road to her enlightenment.

Details

An indie in evident budget if not in spirit, Forever scores a big "F" on the Bechdel test for gender bias, in that its women are almost entirely defined by their relationships with men, even in their conversations with other women. One female antagonist becomes an ally when she needs Celeste's shoulder to cry on after a breakup. The appealing Ari Graynor plays Celeste's supposed female best friend, a relationship that's spoken of occasionally but minimized onscreen. Even a set-piece at the best friend's wedding seems to exist just to hit a beat in the Celeste and Jesse relationship. Graynor deserves better than second-banana marginalization. So does the charismatically swarthy Chris Messina, who, as the potential love interest who Celeste ostensibly puts in his place with her knowledge of consumer psychology, has enough of a genuine spark with Jones that he's sorely missed when he disappears for a huge chunk of the movie. As Celeste travels further down a rabbit hole of self-pity, director Lee Toland Krieger turns the subjectivity knob up to 11, meaning that the camera goes out of focus when Celeste has confusing feelings. The character's increasingly clouded mental state seems to dictate the edit, but there's a difference between stoner logic and a scattered narrative in which characters smoke a lot of pot.